The June Wednesday Walk will be the trail from the car park at the entrance to Tidbinbilla NR to Birragai. We can hope to see a good array of robins at that time of year as well as a mixture of grassland and bush birds. Meet at 0900 on 19 June.
Wed 19 June 2019 09:00am
Martin ButterfieldPost event report
17 members and guests gathered in the car park at the Tidbinbilla Nature Reserve Visitors Centre in clear and pleasantly cool conditions. A range of the usual suspects were seen before we moved off towards the Time Trail in search of Robins.
As usual a number of folk were caught out by the beeps emanating from the Tanging device. Very like a Grey Butcherbird! Moving on from that the expected Flame Robins appeared. As they were actively feeding counting was a little challenging but 10 was recorded as the total, evenlyb split between males and females. A male Scarlet Robin was also seen at this time, and another pair of the species close to the end of the outing.
An Emu was grazing in the paddock and added to the checklist.
Passing through some denser vegetation added 3 Eastern Yellow Robins to our tally of members of the family Petroicidae. The hoped-for 4th species (Hooded Robin) did not manifest itself. Several other species, including a Speckled Warbler were recorded here.
As we headed back across the paddocks, our first (and only) raptor for the day appeared, coming up from a low level and soaring in the middle distance. With longs wings held level in flight and a uniform brown colour it was identified as a Black Falcon: a lifer for some of the group and an addition to others’ ACT life lists.
All up we recorded 32 species, with a full list at https://ebird.org/view/checklist/S57500168